Episode 505 - 12 Chefs Compete
The fifth episode of Season 5 of Hell's Kitchen aired on FOX, on March 5, 2009. On that episode, one chef tried to bond with their new teammates, Ramsay inexplicitly pressed one chef's personal button during dinner service, and a shocking elimination no one saw coming. Intro Back in the dorms, the red team were ecstatic that Lacey was no longer part of their team, and Lacey tried to integrate herself with the blue team. Ben was still shocked by the news and bluntly told Lacey that they were not looking for another Seth, but Lacey asked for a chance to prove herself. Robert tried to play nice, but he knew Lacey was cancerous for the blue team. Lacey promised that she would not cry on the blue team at all and that she felt the red team was ganging up on her. Team challenge The next morning, the chefs were driven to an Asian supermarket, where they met Ramsay. Ramsay revealed that their next challenge was an Asian Fusion Challenge. Each team would create one poultry, one seafood, and one meat dish that had strong Asian influences, and gave them 25 minutes to shop for whatever they needed, with a $100 budget. Andrea took the lead for the red team but ignored her team’s suggestions, much to Carol and LA’s annoyance, while the blue team grabbed anything they could find, and ignored Lacey's questions. Both teams made it to the checkout in time and both were within their budgets. Returning back to Hell’s Kitchen, both teams had one hour to cook their dishes, and both teams had to work in pairs on each dish. In the blue kitchen, the pair of Ben and Lacey had a rough teamwork dynamic as Lacey felt that Ben's instructions were annoying. The pair of Giovanni and J, on the other hand, was confident in their dish, along with the pair of Danny and Robert. However, almost none of the red team had an idea on their dishes, and wasted nearly the first 20 minutes on their conceptions. Ramsay then ordered them not to make their dishes boring. Back in the blue kitchen, Lacey offered to help her new teammates, but found out she was being ignored and not needed. Both teams managed to finish cooking on time, and plated their dishes. Before the judging, Ramsay revealed that he invited Epicurious editor-in-chief Tanya Steel to help him out, and also revealed that the winning team’s dishes would be featured on the Epicurious website. The first round was the poultry and featured Carol and Coi’s dish against Danny and Robert's dish. Carol presented a pomegranate cinnamon glazed chicken breast, but both judges felt that the presentation was boring and that the chicken was dry, even though the flavours were good. Robert presented a pad thai bbq chicken, and both judges praised it for the seasoning and the southern inspiration, which led the blue team to score the first point. The next round was the seafood, and featured Paula and LA’s dish against Ben and Lacey's dish. Paula presented an ahi tuna tempura, and it was praised for its temperature and cooking. Ben presented pan seared scallops with a sea urchin and caviar berblanc sauce, but it was deemed too salty, and the red team scored, tying the score at 1 each. The next round was the meat one, and featured Andrea and Colleen’s dish against Giovanni and J’s dish. Andrea presented a Kobe beef sashimi brushed with Korean style sauce, and while the beef was delicious, the sauce was overpowered by the spices in it. J stumbled on his dish, but Giovanni revealed it was a beef pizzaiola, which was deemed a good concept but had undercooked rice. After much deliberation, Ramsay and Tanya decided that Andrea and Colleen’s dish would win it, and the red team won the challenge 2-1. Reward In addition to having their dishes being featured on the Epicurious website, the red team also went to a karate dojo where they played sumo wrestling. On the ride to their reward, the women were extremely happy that they got rid of Lacey, which meant they would win more challenges. When they got to the dojo, they saw Ramsay and Jean-Philippe sumo wrestle each other, with Ramsay winning. Then, they participated in the wrestling themselves, and after that, they tasted sake at a local bar. Punishment The blue team had to make fortune cookies and decorate the entire dining room with origami. Lacey was upset by this as this was her third challenge loss, and told the blue team she wanted to leave. That pissed of Giovanni who told her to stop whining while mentioning that Seth never threatened to leave at all. Then, Coi noticed that the blue team was getting fed up with Lacey like the red team did. Ben gave Lacey a pep talk, urged her to have some more motivation to do well, and told that the blue team needed her. But, Lacey thought he was lying to her. Lacey annoyed her team while making the fortune cookies, but helped them out with the origami folding, which got her in good grace with her new teammates. When an inebriated red team came back, Lacey guaranteed to her new team that one of the red chefs would be leaving after the next service. Before service The next morning, both teams got to work on prep, with the red team still happy that Lacey was out from their team. Eventually, both teams finished their prep, and Ramsay had both teams lined up for a briefing. Ramsay told Paula that her ahi tuna tempura was one of the best dishes he had ever tasted in Hell’s Kitchen, and that it would be featured on that night's menu. After dismissing both teams to their stations, Ramsay told Jean-Philippe to open Hell’s Kitchen. Dinner service Tanya Steel was in attendance that night. Both teams got their first tickets, and Giovanni and LA managed to get their teams off to a great start with perfect risottos. Thirty minutes into dinner service, and appetizers from both kitchens were going out at a fast pace. A table full of sumo wrestlers soon came in, and all of them ordered the entire menu, forcing Ramsay to split the table between both teams. Lacey became very vocal on the blue team and called out times, which Giovanni believed she really wanted to beat the red team that night. Fifty minutes into dinner service, and the sumo wrestlers were enjoying their appetizers. However, Andrea was hiding burnt Wellingtons and keeping it from her teammates. J cut his Wellingtons and told Ramsay he needed more time as they were still raw, with Sous Chef Scott revealing that his fan was on low instead of high, and Ramsay chewed J out for his mistake. Then, Ramsay saw that the red team’s convection oven was open, and asked if there were Wellingtons in it. When Coi confirmed there were Wellingtons in the oven, Ramsay chewed out Colleen for leaving the door open as they were getting cold, though she did not remember if she did open the oven earlier. Andrea said she was retrying the Wellingtons, but Ramsay soon found Andrea's wasted meat stash, and was furious with her. In the blue kitchen, Ramsay asked Robert to pick up the pace by calling him "Bobby", but that infuriated Robert as "Bobby" was his abusive father’s name, and he did not have a great childhood. Because of that, Robert refused to listen to Ramsay, and threw out a John Dory order with Ramsay soon finding out that he threw out multiple orders. Robert gave a halfhearted explanation on his actions, causing Ramsay to pull him into the pantry room, and ordered him to concentrate while accusing him of giving up. Robert admitted it took a lot of effort not to lash out at Ramsay and, proceeded to moon the confessional camera while telling Ramsay to kiss his ass. In the red kitchen, Andrea said she needed four more minutes on her Wellingtons, and was not communicating properly with Carol on the fish station. This caused a frustrated Ramsay to order Andrea to get it together. Two hours into dinner service, and both kitchens were at a standstill with no food leaving the kitchens. J’s chicken came out raw and Ramsay reminded him that no entrées have left the blue kitchen in 14 minutes, telling J to get a grip. When J realized he forgot an order of lamb, Ramsay angrily told the blue team to communicate. Back in the red kitchen, Colleen was sending out the desserts, but one of them, from Steel’s table, was sent back for being very raw. Ramsay forced the red team to eat it, and chewed out Colleen for sending out raw desserts. After seeing Jean-Philippe come with more returned food, Ramsay had enough and shut down both kitchens while calling it the worst performance so far. Post-mortem Gathering both teams up, Ramsay asked Robert about his attitude problem during service, but Robert said he would like to talk about it in private. Ramsay noted that both teams fell apart on the meat stations, and declared no winning team. He also named Giovanni and LA “Best of the Worst” for their respective teams because of their great start, and asked them to nominate one teammate for elimination. Robert revealed his father issues to the red team, and was soon called down by Ramsay to his office. Robert explained to Ramsay that his father, named Bobby, was abusive to him and that he had a rough childhood. Now fully understanding about Robert's situation, Ramsay apologized for calling him “Bobby”, and promised he would never call him like that ever again. Back in the dorms, Andrea admitted she had a terrible performance, and LA knew that her choice would be between Andrea for being behind, and Colleen for being terrible in all five services so far. J was concerned about who Giovanni would nominate, and Robert knew it was either himself or J, as Lacey had a strong performance that night. Elimination LA revealed that Andrea was her nominee for her poor communication, and Giovanni revealed that J was his nominee for his poor performance on meat, and while he admitted that Robert had a bad night of his own, he was able to rebound quicker than J. Ramsay called Andrea and J down. After listening to their pleas, he ordered both of them to get back in line, told Robert to wake up, and called Colleen down, before eliminating her for her shocking performances during the first five services. Before she left, Ramsay praised her for her tenacity, and after she did, he told the remaining chefs to follow Colleen's tenacity and fight. Ramsay's comment: "There was no place in the kitchen I could put Colleen where she wasn't a disaster. It's time for her to go back to where she belongs: teaching, because she certainly can't cook." Category:Season 5 Category:Episodes